WA Man Sentenced for Giving Marijuana Cake to His Four-Year-Old Daughter

Marijuana

Kush_closeAccording to news sources, a Washington man has pleaded guilty to giving his 4-year-old daughter a piece of chocolate cake infused with marijuana.

The man reportedly went to his daughter’s daycare, where he gave her the cake. The girl later became “extremely lethargic,” and was taken to a local hospital, where she tested positive for THC–the main, active ingredient in marijuana.

Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident. Across the country, accidental exposure to marijuana has become a major problem–especially among children.

  1. May, 2016: Hospitals in Colorado report a spike in the number of newborns born with marijuana in their systems.
  2. April, 2016: A Georgia woman was arrested after her five year old said he ate a marijuana cake for breakfast. The child was taken to the hospital for treatment following the incident; according to officials, his pulse was measured at over 200 beats per minute. According to the child’s mother, the cake laced with marijuana was given to her by another person.
  3. March, 2015: Four high school students were hospitalized after eating brownies laced with marijuana hash oil. One student was actually found unresponsive in a school bathroom after eating a marijuana-laced brownie.
  4. February, 2015: A 20-month-old Canadian toddler overdosed after eating a marijuana-laced cookie authorities say his father baked. The child survived, but suffered seizures and had to be admitted to a hospital.
  5. December, 2014: A high school teacher in Maryland was hospitalized after a student gave her a brownie containing marijuana.
  6. December, 2014: Two middle school students in Oklahoma were rushed to the hospital after one of them reportedly passed out following marijuana-use at school.
  7. November, 2014: A Connecticut teen was taken to the hospital from school after she started having difficulty breathing following ingestion of a marijuana-laced gummy bear.
  8. June, 2014: According to The Aspen Times, a seven-year-old girl was taken to the hospital after eating marijuana-laced candy her mother brought home from work at an area hotel. The candy was left by a hotel guest–presumably as a tip.
  9. December, 2013: A two-year-old in Colorado overdosed and was hospitalized after eating a cookie laced with marijuana.News outlet indicate the girl found the cookie in the yard of an apartment complex.

Ingestion of marijuana by children is a very serious problem. Earlier this year, WMGT ran a news story on the matter, saying,

Dr. Christy Peterson, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the Medical Center, Navicent Health, said the effects of marijuana are greater and more unpredictable on children than adults.

“Teenagers or adults, it may feel like sleepiness, but in a kid it can look like lethargy and it can even, in severe cases, lead to coma. . . .

“It makes them sleepy, agitated and ataxia which means that they can’t walk very well. It makes them seem disoriented. It makes them not perform well at school or be able to control their body. Hand-eye coordination would be decreased,” said Dr. Peterson.

As some states have legalized marijuana, stories like these have become more common. All of this underscores what we keep saying: Marijuana may be many things, but “harmless” simply is not one of them.

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Federal Officials Stumping for Transgender Agenda in Commencement Addresses

Transgender, , ,

Vanita_GuptaWe have written extensively about government overreach in the areas of education and public health; the Obama Administration is reinterpreting federal laws to force schools to let biological males who claim to be female use girls’ restrooms and locker rooms at school. The administration also is forcing hospitals and doctors to offer “gender transition” services–something that flies in the face of many doctors’ professional and conscientious convictions.

In between all of this, federal officials also have been stumping in favor of gay and transgender activists at school graduations.

The head of the federal Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, Vanita Gupta, told New York University School of Law graduates on May 19,

And we see this gap [between what laws guarantee and what people experience] in efforts to deny LGBTI individuals – especially transgender men and women – the respect they deserve and the protection our laws guarantee.  And let me add this – efforts like House Bill 2 in North Carolina [requiring people to use  public restrooms corresponding to the sex listed on their birth certificates] not only violate the laws that govern our nation, but also the values that define us as a people.

Earlier, on May 14, she told University of Minnesota Law School graduates,

Even after the Supreme Court’s landmark gay marriage decision last year in Obergefell v. Hodges that guaranteed all people ‘equal dignity in the eyes of the law,’ we see new efforts to deny LGBTI individuals the respect they deserve and the protection our laws guarantee.  And let me add this – efforts like House Bill 2 in North Carolina [requiring people to use  public restrooms corresponding to the sex listed on their birth certificates] not only violate the laws that govern our nation, but also the values that define us as a people.

On Monday, May 16, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch gave the commencement address at the University of Pennsylvania School of Law, in which she said,

[F]rom Bunker Hill to Appomattox and from Seneca Falls to Selma; from the Emancipation Proclamation to the 19th Amendment and from the civil rights laws of the 1960s to Obergefell v. Hodges [which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide] – we have won these and so many other victories only because people of good will and moral conviction refused to stand aside when there was more to be done.

U.S. Attorney General Lynch’s words effectively equate the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to nullify state marriage laws nationwide with the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, and Assistant Attorney General Gupta seems to think it is patently un-American to believe men should use the men’s room and women should use the women’s room.

In the eyes of this administration letting people use the restroom of their choice is not some minor issue; it is a civil right. That comes as a surprise to many people, considering the many other problems plaguing the world today, but these officials’ words and actions seem to be clear indicators of the federal government’s priorities.

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Obamacare Rule Could Require Doctors, Hospitals Go to Court to Prove Religious Convictions

Transgender, ,

Last Friday the Obama Administration unveiled a set of guidelines effectively forcing schools to let biological males who claim to be female use the women’s restrooms, locker rooms, shower facilities, and so on at school–and vice versa. The Obama Administration justified these guidelines by claiming Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972–which prevents discrimination on the basis of sex in education–also prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender-identity,even though the law never mentions gender-identity.

The guidelines have been greeted by vocal opposition–especially in Arkansas, where congressional delegates, the governor and attorney general, and state legislators have come out against the guidelines.

The same day these egregious guidelines were issued, the federal Department of Health and Human Services issued its final version of the “Section 1557” rule effectively requiring doctors and hospitals to offer “gender transition” services.

Section 1557 is a portion of Obamacare, which Congress passed in 2009. Section 1557 prevents hospitals and similar facilities from discriminating against patients on the basis of sex, among other things.

Just like the federal Department of Education unilaterally reinterpreted Title IX with its school guidelines, DHHS unilaterally reinterpreted Obamacare Section 1557. According to DHHS, Section 1557 also prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender identity; the new rule prohibits healthcare providers that receives federal funds, including hospitals that accept Medicare and doctors who receive Medicaid payments, from “discriminating” on the basis of gender identity.

So what does this mean? Well, aside from being a radical reinterpretation of federal law, the rules threaten religious liberty. DHHS writes, “categorical coverage exclusions or limitations for all health care services related to gender transition are discriminatory” under these new federal rules.

In other words, hospitals that do not offer sex-change surgery, hormone therapies, and so on for individuals who disagree with their biological sex may be penalized–and risk forfeiting any federal funding.

But many religiously-affiliated hospitals object to sex-change operations. And the rule contains no religious exemption for these hospitals and facilities.

This is not some oversight on the part of the government. The Obama Administration said point blank it thought about including a religious exemption in the rule, but decided not to, saying “[the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Civil Rights] decided against including a blanket religious exemption in the final rule” because religious freedom is already protected elsewhere in federal law–such as in the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

By deliberately omitting any religious exemptions in the final version of the Section 1557 rule, the Obama Administration is virtually guaranteeing religiously-affiliated hospitals will be sued. Hospitals that have religious objections to offering sex-change surgery can be sued under Section 1557; they will have to go to court, stand before a judge, and argue that under the First Amendment and the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, requiring them to perform sex-change surgeries would burden their free exercise of religion. Whether they are exempted from complying with that part of the rule will be up to the judge.

By contrast, when Congress passed Title IX in 1972 prohibiting discrimination in education on the basis of sex, Congress made sure to include a religious exemption as part of the law itself. This prevents, for example, a federal court from forcing seminaries belonging to denominations that do not ordain women to admit and ordain female seminarians.

Under Title IX, schools like these can qualify for a religious exemption. By contrast, the Section 1557 rule not only reinterprets federal law, but it deliberately omits a religious exemption. This virtually guarantees religiously-affiliated hospitals will have to defend their deeply-held religious convictions in court.

These new rules contain unnecessary provisions that reinterpret federal law and threaten doctors’ and hospitals’ religious liberties.

You can read more about Section 1557 here and here.

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